If your argument against having sex is that people have better things to be doing, shouldn't you be equally against monogamous sex within marriage? Sex doesn't take less time just because you're married (at least, for the sake of married people, I hope not :p)
Yeah, it got cut for length / relevance, but I had an argument for dating to optimize for future children's capabilities & values in here. Maybe also too far to push c:, especially if I'm only asking for 10%.
The issue with this is that there is little overlap between effective altruists, who tend to be secular and libertarian, and people that are socially conservative, like evangelical Christians.
They share an an appreciation for calculated intemperance, with the latter emphasizing the temperance, the former the calculation. IOW they're conscientious and probably equally prone to vice overall, with the evangelicals being very either/or - teetotalers and those who very much struggle - and the EAs more measured, generally functional, but still engaging in vice.
Much of this seems like a new age way for smart people to leverage the value of religion without calling themselves religious. EA’s doing a lot of mental gymnastics to live a virtuous life.
Your model of a good society or what works well is misattributed to the values I think. Moreso, I think the positive aspects of what you're pointing out are the stability that a more uniform community can provide, such as a church. Christianity isn't the only value system that could effectively facilitate this kind of stability, secular churches and other religions can have a similar effect. The only difference is that these alternates thus far have never been quite so effective at charming/scaring folks into falling in line.
At any rate, you're not entirely wrong there's definitely demand for this structure in society even in more liberal circles. But marrying positive life outcomes so aggressively to your highly specific value set, at least in some instances, is Christian fan fiction.
Do you disagree with the point that you have better things to be doing? Do you think that religion does not encourage these things effectively? What is the argument here?
The argument is that "optimizing" life for productivity is inherently non-human. People do things to enjoy life. That isn't fundamentally unproductive necessarily especially via the lens of self-care.
There are "sins" so to speak that actively damage a person and their ability to function, but many of these ideals you point out are hyperfocused on the notion that they're always a negative alternative to something better. Which is just an opinion and isn't really well rooted in most folks philosophy of life.
More simply, I disagree with at least some of the values you posit as something core to human and societal health which you seem to claim it is. Likely, your opinion is an outpouring of your theology applied to real life and because im not working with the same base assumptions about reality, we end up with different conclusions.
It is American to allow this diversity of thought. Applying uniformity to people's values is more of a authoritarian regime/facistic ideal. We should avoid attempting to control people like that.
To address the underlying sentiment a bit more directly, hedonism is itself the most inherently inhuman ideology. It reduces you to an animal far more than rationalism ever could. Do you feel more insulted if you're compared to a pig or if you're compared to a chess engine? For the vast majority of people, it's obviously the pig. Humans have lived in a more socially conservative way for the vast majority of history / evolutionary history; it's simply absurd to equate this temporary dysgenic cul-de-sac with what is "human".
You can argue for hedonism and indulge in it yourself; but don't ever try to pretend it is in any way more human than the alternative. It is a rejection of what it means to be human, through and through.
You've equated my point of view to hedonism. Which is wrong. Science based thinking and using applied thought to structure your life has only added value to society.
Your belief that Christianity is a logical conclusion of anything alive seems to make you assume everyone else that disagrees with you is irrational. That's how I read you at least. Why would you assume me a hedonist? So strange.
> The argument is that "optimizing" life for productivity is inherently non-human.
You are clearly expressing a moral point of view. Don't shy away from that. Take it to it's logical conclusion. Don't for a second delude yourself into thinking you're doing science.
One of you is crippled by your experience with Big Atheism and appear to be unaware of when they installed that program in your subconscious. You can feel the emotional programmed response in the writing!
So you're disagreeing with the notion that life should only be about "optimizing productivity". Yikes.
As a former Christian, allow me to point you to Philippians 4:11-13: Paul speaks about learning to be content in all circumstances, whether in abundance or in need. This contentment is based on trusting in God's provision and strength rather than focusing solely on productivity.
By advocating for folks to follow these ideals but not the Christian God, you are worshiping "productivity" not your God. And you're attempting to map God and Christian ideals to the secular notion of "being effective/productive" which is a fuzzy mapping.
I have not one but two paragraphs for these emotional reactions, which you very clearly didn't read
> The one premise of this argument is that we have better things to be doing than sex and drugs. Maybe you don’t believe this. In that case, this article isn’t for you, and I honestly don’t think I could say anything that would convince you. But if you think that scientific research, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, or really anything at all is a higher, more important, or more moral thing to be doing, then this argument is for you. In practice, it’s targeted towards the Effective Altruist types in my audience, though I’m sure the conservatives in my audience will appreciate the article for encouraging them to do things they’re already doing (like and share, guys).
> I mention that this is the naive model because there are several objections to the nature of the tradeoff. One might argue that it takes as much effort to control your desires than it does to indulge them. This is true in some extreme cases, like the Islamic Republic of Iran. I titled the article “10% More Social Conservatism” for a reason. I’m not arguing for Iran and in almost all cases don’t think military enforcement is practical or cost-effective. Instead I’m arguing for a shift in informal social norms, which will won’t fully prevent anyone from doing the things I oppose, but hopefully encourage some fraction of people not to.
Your interpretation of science is cherry picked and skewed. I can't fix that. But I assure you I read your article even though it wasn't particularly new ideas, I had hoped I'd be able to talk with someone who had the ability to see beyond their perspective.
These lines of "what's good/bad" for folks are murky at best. Hallucinogens are being shown to be useful for therapy, etc.
Your 10% notion is silly imo. You're asking people to respect ideals they don't believe in. The relationship you argue between following these ideals and having a better life are simply out tenuous and irrespective of other external causes such as socio-economics.
Hopefully we can keep this civil. I don't want message box to be an angry place, so I'd probably simply unfollow the page.
If people do things to enjoy life they are doing a terrible job of it. For instance having children is not enjoyable. People don’t really want to be happy. They would much rather fight and win.
People do lots of things for lots of reasons. One of those reasons is "to be happy". Another reason is "to be productive". People aren't just one thing, they're complicated as is life. You're being too reductive and losing all the nuance of what it is to be alive.
A massive amount of money goes to attend to people with drug or alcohol problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if 400 people in my city are paid full time to chase 800 homeless people around. The fact that we still aim to control addictions is a clue to me that social control is about more than making everybody productive.
Social control is there to redirect us when we get into crisis. I want to be the guy who is witty or courageous so I drink. Maybe somebody wants to feel creative like me so they drop acid. Do I have to respond and make my art trippier to compete with them? Now we’re in crisis and the power dynamic takes over.
I suppose the impulse to leave my wife for somebody who sees me the way I see me, who will chase this addictive illusion of myself as hard as I do, is another version of this crisis. To compete my wife has to get into the crisis with my lover.
Somebody loves Kim Kardashian and wants to become her. What if she looks and acts exactly the same? I want somebody in authority who “looks like me”. What if they look exactly like me? It seems to me these are the crises any social control tries to head off or redirect.
Conservatives do love their slippery slope arguments.
You should get into the habit of "steelman"-ing other folks arguments. You're combating a misrepresentation of what I said that suits your counterpoint. Which is a fancy way of saying you're not really understanding me but you like to think you do.
If your argument against having sex is that people have better things to be doing, shouldn't you be equally against monogamous sex within marriage? Sex doesn't take less time just because you're married (at least, for the sake of married people, I hope not :p)
Yeah, it got cut for length / relevance, but I had an argument for dating to optimize for future children's capabilities & values in here. Maybe also too far to push c:, especially if I'm only asking for 10%.
The issue with this is that there is little overlap between effective altruists, who tend to be secular and libertarian, and people that are socially conservative, like evangelical Christians.
They share an an appreciation for calculated intemperance, with the latter emphasizing the temperance, the former the calculation. IOW they're conscientious and probably equally prone to vice overall, with the evangelicals being very either/or - teetotalers and those who very much struggle - and the EAs more measured, generally functional, but still engaging in vice.
Much of this seems like a new age way for smart people to leverage the value of religion without calling themselves religious. EA’s doing a lot of mental gymnastics to live a virtuous life.
Can’t I do sex, drink Chablis, and still have time for EA? I’m a glass half full kind of guy.
s/Bostrum/Bostrom
Your model of a good society or what works well is misattributed to the values I think. Moreso, I think the positive aspects of what you're pointing out are the stability that a more uniform community can provide, such as a church. Christianity isn't the only value system that could effectively facilitate this kind of stability, secular churches and other religions can have a similar effect. The only difference is that these alternates thus far have never been quite so effective at charming/scaring folks into falling in line.
At any rate, you're not entirely wrong there's definitely demand for this structure in society even in more liberal circles. But marrying positive life outcomes so aggressively to your highly specific value set, at least in some instances, is Christian fan fiction.
Do you disagree with the point that you have better things to be doing? Do you think that religion does not encourage these things effectively? What is the argument here?
The argument is that "optimizing" life for productivity is inherently non-human. People do things to enjoy life. That isn't fundamentally unproductive necessarily especially via the lens of self-care.
There are "sins" so to speak that actively damage a person and their ability to function, but many of these ideals you point out are hyperfocused on the notion that they're always a negative alternative to something better. Which is just an opinion and isn't really well rooted in most folks philosophy of life.
More simply, I disagree with at least some of the values you posit as something core to human and societal health which you seem to claim it is. Likely, your opinion is an outpouring of your theology applied to real life and because im not working with the same base assumptions about reality, we end up with different conclusions.
It is American to allow this diversity of thought. Applying uniformity to people's values is more of a authoritarian regime/facistic ideal. We should avoid attempting to control people like that.
To address the underlying sentiment a bit more directly, hedonism is itself the most inherently inhuman ideology. It reduces you to an animal far more than rationalism ever could. Do you feel more insulted if you're compared to a pig or if you're compared to a chess engine? For the vast majority of people, it's obviously the pig. Humans have lived in a more socially conservative way for the vast majority of history / evolutionary history; it's simply absurd to equate this temporary dysgenic cul-de-sac with what is "human".
You can argue for hedonism and indulge in it yourself; but don't ever try to pretend it is in any way more human than the alternative. It is a rejection of what it means to be human, through and through.
You've equated my point of view to hedonism. Which is wrong. Science based thinking and using applied thought to structure your life has only added value to society.
Your belief that Christianity is a logical conclusion of anything alive seems to make you assume everyone else that disagrees with you is irrational. That's how I read you at least. Why would you assume me a hedonist? So strange.
> The argument is that "optimizing" life for productivity is inherently non-human.
You are clearly expressing a moral point of view. Don't shy away from that. Take it to it's logical conclusion. Don't for a second delude yourself into thinking you're doing science.
One of you is crippled by your experience with Big Atheism and appear to be unaware of when they installed that program in your subconscious. You can feel the emotional programmed response in the writing!
So you're disagreeing with the notion that life should only be about "optimizing productivity". Yikes.
As a former Christian, allow me to point you to Philippians 4:11-13: Paul speaks about learning to be content in all circumstances, whether in abundance or in need. This contentment is based on trusting in God's provision and strength rather than focusing solely on productivity.
By advocating for folks to follow these ideals but not the Christian God, you are worshiping "productivity" not your God. And you're attempting to map God and Christian ideals to the secular notion of "being effective/productive" which is a fuzzy mapping.
I have not one but two paragraphs for these emotional reactions, which you very clearly didn't read
> The one premise of this argument is that we have better things to be doing than sex and drugs. Maybe you don’t believe this. In that case, this article isn’t for you, and I honestly don’t think I could say anything that would convince you. But if you think that scientific research, entrepreneurship, philanthropy, or really anything at all is a higher, more important, or more moral thing to be doing, then this argument is for you. In practice, it’s targeted towards the Effective Altruist types in my audience, though I’m sure the conservatives in my audience will appreciate the article for encouraging them to do things they’re already doing (like and share, guys).
> I mention that this is the naive model because there are several objections to the nature of the tradeoff. One might argue that it takes as much effort to control your desires than it does to indulge them. This is true in some extreme cases, like the Islamic Republic of Iran. I titled the article “10% More Social Conservatism” for a reason. I’m not arguing for Iran and in almost all cases don’t think military enforcement is practical or cost-effective. Instead I’m arguing for a shift in informal social norms, which will won’t fully prevent anyone from doing the things I oppose, but hopefully encourage some fraction of people not to.
Your interpretation of science is cherry picked and skewed. I can't fix that. But I assure you I read your article even though it wasn't particularly new ideas, I had hoped I'd be able to talk with someone who had the ability to see beyond their perspective.
These lines of "what's good/bad" for folks are murky at best. Hallucinogens are being shown to be useful for therapy, etc.
Your 10% notion is silly imo. You're asking people to respect ideals they don't believe in. The relationship you argue between following these ideals and having a better life are simply out tenuous and irrespective of other external causes such as socio-economics.
Hopefully we can keep this civil. I don't want message box to be an angry place, so I'd probably simply unfollow the page.
If people do things to enjoy life they are doing a terrible job of it. For instance having children is not enjoyable. People don’t really want to be happy. They would much rather fight and win.
People do lots of things for lots of reasons. One of those reasons is "to be happy". Another reason is "to be productive". People aren't just one thing, they're complicated as is life. You're being too reductive and losing all the nuance of what it is to be alive.
A massive amount of money goes to attend to people with drug or alcohol problems. I wouldn’t be surprised if 400 people in my city are paid full time to chase 800 homeless people around. The fact that we still aim to control addictions is a clue to me that social control is about more than making everybody productive.
Social control is there to redirect us when we get into crisis. I want to be the guy who is witty or courageous so I drink. Maybe somebody wants to feel creative like me so they drop acid. Do I have to respond and make my art trippier to compete with them? Now we’re in crisis and the power dynamic takes over.
I suppose the impulse to leave my wife for somebody who sees me the way I see me, who will chase this addictive illusion of myself as hard as I do, is another version of this crisis. To compete my wife has to get into the crisis with my lover.
Somebody loves Kim Kardashian and wants to become her. What if she looks and acts exactly the same? I want somebody in authority who “looks like me”. What if they look exactly like me? It seems to me these are the crises any social control tries to head off or redirect.
Conservatives do love their slippery slope arguments.
You should get into the habit of "steelman"-ing other folks arguments. You're combating a misrepresentation of what I said that suits your counterpoint. Which is a fancy way of saying you're not really understanding me but you like to think you do.
Oh I’m sorry I messed up. This comment had nothing to do with what you said. Sorry about that